Gamma-ray astronomy with MAGIC and with the future CTA

par Thomas Schweizer (Max Planck Institute for Physics)

vendredi 7 mai 2010, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Paris

Amphithéâtre CPPM

Gamma-ray astronomy is one of the fastest growing fields inphysics with many interesting topics and questions such as thequestion about the origin of CR. The reason for the big successin the field was the very successful Cherenkov light imaging technique.As an example the MAGIC project will be presented. The MAGICtelescopes are worldwide the largest Cherenkov telescopes with 17mdiameter mirror dish, located on the Canary island of La Palma. The telescopes have been designed to do low energy (>30GeV) gamma-ray astronomy. Some of the highlights of MAGIC will be shown to get a taste of the possibilities of the future Cherenkov telescope array (CTA). CTA will be the next generation ground-based gamma-ray observatory, the successor of several Cherenkov-telescope installations: MAGIC, HESS and VERITAS. CTA is a very large project with now already 700 physicists from 50 institutes. We are aiming for a budget of around 150 Mio Euro. Exciting physics can be expected with this new installation. CTA will have an increased sensitivity by one order of magnitude and an improved angular resolution compared to current instruments. In addition, the energy range will be extended to lower energies down to 10-20 GeV and up to 100 TeV. An overview of the current design status and also the potential physics topics will be given.

Slides CTA_Marseille_2010_Final.pdf